I've been working on my portrait of Foster the Boxer. After transferring the sketch to canvas, I started by painting in a pink underpainting to map out Foster's facial features. Next, I added the black markings on his face, his nose and eyes:

Once I was satisfied with the overall proportions, I started on the detail. I made the underpainting pink so that it would show through the white of his fur here and there, and create a deeper look. I imagine that Foster's skin is probably pink underneath his coat, so this helps me visualize the way his face and neck wrinkles would look.

During the first stage of adding solid color, I like to work quickly with a medium to large brush, so that I can blend colors together on the canvas as the paint dries. At this point in the portrait, a moderate amount of detail has been painted in, and the fine adjustments and fur texture remain.

After painting in the coarse detail, I like to stop and let things dry, then do the fine detail in a few hours or the next day. The fast dry time is one of my very favorite aspects of working in acrylic. The dry time can be lengthened with the use of acrylic blending medium (sometimes called "retarder"), but even with blending medium added, acrylic paintings dry much faster than oils.